If you're a US-based GoPro user, and particularly if you utilize the action camera firm's subscription services, then you've probably already heard about a new initiative the firm rolled out for certain invited US-based subscribers in August. It's worth noting that it also comes with a plan to eventually roll it out to all US-based subscribers—and maybe, eventually internationally, as well.
GoPro is calling it the AI Training Licensing Program, and they tout it with a big shiny headline that reads, "GET PAID TO USE YOUR FOOTAGE FOR AI TRAINING."
Putting aside for a moment my or your or anyone else's personal feelings about AI as a concept, it sounds like a simple enough thing. GoPro lists three relatively simple steps on its landing page for the program that break it down into a simple process. They're also very quick in promotional materials to note that users have to opt in to this program in the first place; the inference being that it's not one of those super sketchy 'features' where it's automatically turned on, and you have to manually opt out of it if you don't want to participate (hello Google Gemini for Android devices).
The steps are as follows, and I'll quote GoPro directly here:
- Opt in: Once you opt in, you'll have 7 days to review enrolled footage and remove anything you don't want shared as part of the program. Then, we market your cloud footage to our partners on your behalf. You can opt out at any time.
- Market + License: We only market your footage to trusted AI partners. From there, we handle all the licensing—no action needed from you, until it's time to collect payment.
- Real Rewards: If an AI partner licenses your content for AI training, you get paid—you and GoPro split the revenue 50/50. And since it can be purchased more than once, your earning potential keeps growing without any extra effort.
With me so far? Below that, we start to get into GoPro's FAQ for the program. Now, if you're the type of person who pays attention to web design, then you're probably familiar with designs that use an endless scroll feature to keep you on their page and looking at their content for longer. Notably, GoPro's design team did something a little different here.
When you get to the GoPro AI Training Licensing Program FAQ, it starts by displaying just three questions and answers. To see more, you have to then click the View More button. On the one hand, this could be good if you're trying to actively engage and take in all pertinent information without getting overwhelmed, or lost in a wall of text.
But if you somehow miss the View More button, you might also only think there are just three questions. And you might not ever get to the links that lead you to the full GoPro AI Training Licensing FAQ, which is linked only after you've clicked View More twice to get to the bottom of the eight total questions and answers that GoPro includes on its main page FAQ (which is apparently not its complete FAQ) about the program.
And if you never get to the FULL GoPro AI Training Licensing FAQ, you'll also never get to the GoPro AI Training Program Terms and Conditions, should you actually want to read them. I know, I know; a lot of people click Accept and don't read T&Cs for a lot of things; something that regularly drives privacy advocates absolutely mental. Humor me here.
After reading the fine print, you'll notice a few things. Now, assuming you put on your best focus playlist and you read all this stuff from top to bottom like I just did, a few things may jump out at you.
After GoPro talks a bit about how UGC (that's 'user-generated content,' for the acronym-averse) provides unique benefits to AI providers and large language models, it also offers a very general view of the types of AI companies it hopes to sell your content to once you've opted in.
The fine print also makes clear that you'll only get paid IF and WHEN your content is selected by one or more of GoPro's chosen AI partner companies. Fair enough, but at no point is there any mention of any kind of transparency regarding the 'trusted companies' that GoPro is allowing to access your content for AI training purposes.
Who's accessing your videos? You may never know. And you might be OK with that; but also, you might not. Either way, you have no say in the matter, if you choose to opt in.
And, perhaps more importantly for those who are hoping to make money from this program, which I would think is why you'd opt into it in the first place; there's no mention of any timeframe or mechanism by which GoPro will keep track of your videos getting licensed within the confines of the program, and any payments it makes or owes to you.
The T&Cs do mention that it might make payments via multiple expected means; cash disbursements via ACH or digital platforms, including Venmo and PayPal, prepaid bank or gift cards, and so on, but they don't mention any accounting mechanism for any of this stuff at any point.
Is it calculated monthly? That's unclear; the only mention of "monthly" in the T&Cs is on the user end, in that GoPro users notified of Rewards Notices (in other words, that you're making sweet, sweet bank) must respond within six months of notification or else they forfeit any money made.
So if your contact information is incorrect, or the Post Office loses your notice, or you lose access to your email account and you can't get it sorted within six months, you're out of luck. Poof go your funds.
Maybe this one doesn't seem so onerous; after all, six months isn't an unreasonable length of time. But how do you feel about seven days? That's a calendar week, and it goes by pretty quick, which is the next thing I'd like to talk about in the fine print.
Once You Opt In, ALL Your Current and Future GoPro Cloud Content Is Opted In—Unless You Deselect Videos One At A Time
Paging through the FAQ, GoPro says that once a user opts in to the AI Training Licensing program, by default, all your content is opted in. In other words, the opt-in process happens at a USER level, not at an individual video level.
You can still choose to have any of your videos NOT included, GoPro is quick to state. But to do that, it is on YOU, the USER, to individually go through all your videos and opt each one out that you don't want included, one at a time.
And you only have seven days to do so.
I don't know about you, but seven days isn't a long time; particularly if you're busy with life, or you have a flaky internet connection, or you're just a person in the world dealing with the regular firehose of news we're all experiencing on a daily basis.
Seven days goes by very, very quickly, and if you have a ton of video content you need to go through, are you really going to get through it all and opt out things you don't want included in GoPro's AI Training Licensing Program in time?
Maybe you will, maybe you won't. But it truly doesn't feel like that's enough time if you don't want little Timmy's last birthday party included in the footage you allow to be used for these purposes.
Once You Opt In, You Also Only Have 7 Days To Opt Out Any NEW Videos You Upload, Too
Let's say you've got a bunch of cool GoPro content from trips you've taken that you decide you want to opt in to GoPro's AI Training Licensing Program. Maybe you've taken motorcycle trips to all 48 continental US states, for example, and you feel great about folks seeing the highways and byways through your lens.
But also, you love taking your GoPro to family gatherings, maybe capturing smaller, more intimate stuff like children's birthday parties, or even get-togethers with friends. Family game night; your best friend's band performing at the bar up the street from your house; everyday slice-of-life moments.
You know, the kind of stuff that people have been recording as home movies ever since personal video recording devices were invented. GoPros aren't Super8s, but they are descended from that lineage, and lots of people use them in a variety of different ways to document the things they feel are important.
And maybe you want to share those moments with a larger audience, but it should be up to YOU if you do. You shouldn't automatically be opted in to sharing them.
The way GoPro's AI Training Licensing Program FAQ reads at the time of writing, all new content you upload to your GoPro cloud account is automatically opted in, unless you deselect it within that magical seven-day window after uploading.
So, if you happen to shoot your friend's wedding on a GoPro, then have an absolute week from hell and keep forgetting to deselect that footage from your GoPro cloud so it isn't opted in; oh well, too bad, that moment is released into the world for potential AI model training forever.
Seven days, as I've stressed here repeatedly, is not a long time. And I strongly feel that the default setting in this program should either be something that you, the GoPro user, can toggle on or off at your leisure—or else, at an INDIVIDUAL VIDEO LEVEL, it should default to Off. If you, the GoPro User, agree to AI Training in principle, it should be up to YOU to toggle that switch on for each individual video that you choose to share.
It should always be up to you; not GoPro, not the faceless, unnamed AI training companies they want to partner with; YOU. It's your content. Without you, it wouldn't exist for GoPro to monetize, nor AI to be trained upon.
By defaulting to an always-on setting, you just know that folks are going to Opt In, maybe forget they've opted in, and then just end up uploading videos that get fed into training models that they never meant to have used in that way.
Some might be harmless, but some might not be. And in any case, you can't ever put that genie back in the bottle once it's out.
If You Opt In, GoPro Says You Can Opt Out, But There's A Catch
GoPro does say that once you've opted in to its AI Training Learning Program profit-sharing scheme, you can always opt out at any time. However, it's also quick to note that your choice to opt back out will only cover any content licensing deals after you've opted out. If your content was previously licensed, those licenses will continue and will not be canceled.
I'm not going to tell you what to do, but you should go into a choice like this with full knowledge of what you're agreeing to before you agree to it. Situations where it's on the user to continuously have to opt out (rather than opting in), particularly where it can potentially impact user privacy, always seem trying at best and downright sketchy at worst.
But what are your thoughts on this program, and the potential issues I've raised here? Let me know in the comments.
